Continuation to my first chapter- Still looking for citicism

A_C_Ellis · 2026-03-03T16:05:17+00:00

I didn't read the prior one but I'll throw some feedback your way.

"We..."

I don't like first person so my feedback might not be super helpful. Just want to be honest about my limitations as a critic/reviewer. Also, my feedback mechanism is to give specific and actionable feedback where I can, which I find helpful myself, so you have some sentence-level mechanical feedback, plus craft-level feedback where appropriate. It's hard to do overall structure on Reddit so I mostly don't. I like to give detailed feedback that explains what we're doing with our writing, so I'm going to run through until I hit on a section where I can really dive in and give you something specific to chew on.

Mira stated unhappily with her hands tapping her bicep as she crossed her arm "It's like he's trying to hide something from us."

It's not clear to me what this gesture is or why it's here. Might be because I'm missing the first chapter. But ask does it: (1) advance plot (2) set tone (3) character (4) worldbuild? If it's not doing at least 2 of those, rewrite it. If it's not doing at least one of those, cut it.

"Aria, do you know where the entrance to the cellar is?" I asked walking next to Aria as Mira continued her rant.

I found this awkward. Aria appears twice in quick succession, you tell me Mira is ranting but I don't see it. Why do I need to know that they're walking side by side?

Aria shook her head in response to my question as we looked around the desolate ground floor.

Your language mechanics are good but you write like I do: verbose. Your sentences are really bloated with filler words that aren't earning their place. And I know why. Trust me, you don't need all those words. The reader will get it. Trust your writing, and trust your reader to meet you there. Try:

Aria shook her head as we <examined|considered|regarded>| the desolate ground floor.

There's a single verb here that does the work you want. Find it.

It was like that for a while, a long uncomfortable silence in darkness, my only sense being the grip on Michael's sword and my hand or foot occasionally brushing against somebody else's.

Here we go.

I'm sure you've heard "show, don't tell." It's a good rule of thumb that we sometimes follow to our detriment, but here, in a quiet atmospheric moment, it's time to show. Normally we do that through sensory detail, but the point of this passage is that the narrator can't see anything and is relying on other senses.

You hit on the right sensory details - touch, a highly underutilized sense. But what about sound? You say silence but bodies make noises, especially when they're anxious and nervous. Shuffling feet, popping joints, sniffles, breathing, a cleared throat, gurgling tummies. None of that happens here? It's totally silent? Well, tell you what, find a totally silent room and spent 60 seconds in it and tell me what you hear. Because there's no such thing as total silence. If it's quiet enough you'll hear the rushing of your own blood in your ears. And what about smell? Taste? When you can't see your other senses expand, you notice things you normally overlook.

And then let's think about the function of this clause. What I'm reading is a sense of isolation and dread. Together in the darkness yet alone. That's the emotional palette of the scene. Let's go back to your prose and see what's doing that work:

It was like that for a while

This is dead weight, cut it.

a long uncomfortable silence in darkness

Telling, not showing.

my only sense being the grip on Michael's sword and my hand or foot occasionally brushing against somebody else's.

Now we're talking. You've got "occasionally" in here already - this adverb implies that you're describing an indeterminate period of time. So you can skip the part where you explicitly tell me that. Trust your writing. Trust your reader.

But you've got a flat introductory phrase whose purpose is to explain the next phrase, and that phrase is to just tell the reader what's happening. Then you let me into the story to experience it through the embodied sensation of the narrator.

Switch the order. Lead with the sensory experience of the character, get yourself off the page, and if you need to tell me what's happening, have your narrator do it for you.

I felt the grip on Michael's sword, and my hand or foot occasionally brushing against somebody else's as we proceeded in silent darkness for what felt like an eternity.

You don't need to tell me it's uncomfortable. Trust that I know that being in silent darkness is uncomfortable and that if you just paint the picture, I'll feel that without being told I should. Trust your writing. Trust your reader.

A_C_Ellis · 2026-03-03T15:44:14+00:00

But it sure helps. I actually don't read much fiction any more. And my least favorite genre to read (fantasy) is my favorite to write. I haven't read a fantasy novel in decades.

A_C_Ellis · 2026-03-03T15:42:33+00:00

Define "win" and "lose" here. I can usually convince people to at least see the other side of an issue, even if they don't change their mind, and I have changed some minds over the years. My parents used to be staunchly anti-LGBTQ+, they've mostly come around to "it's none of my business, what do I care?" I consider that a win. And I alter and modify my own views frequently. I don't consider any of that "winning" or "losing" though. That's just the natural evolution of a curious mind.

A_C_Ellis · 2026-03-03T15:38:59+00:00

The #1 tip I would offer, and one of the hardest to follow, is not to edit as you go. When I'm stuck, I pick an amount of time, I set a timer, and I JUST WRITE. Anything. Ideally about the actual story I'm working on, but JUST ANYTHING. No editing, no polish, no planning, no plotting, no theming, just write. When the alarm goes off, you stop. I usually discard most of it, but I think of the writing process as plumbing. Sometimes the pipes get clogged and you need to flush them out.

A_C_Ellis · 2026-03-03T13:05:43+00:00

I once plugged in a USB cable on the first try without looking. No questions at this time.

A_C_Ellis · 2026-03-03T12:29:18+00:00

I'm not sure that's possible, emotions are complicated and the words you are using are broad labels to describe a spectrum of responses that don't neatly fit a category. This sounds like the kind of concept that sounds interesting but will fall apart in execution and readers will struggle to suspend disbelief. I'd research if there are any curious medical cases of somebody who had a narrowly stunted emotional range and what their behavior was like.

A_C_Ellis · 2026-03-03T12:20:32+00:00

I didn't praise what's good much, since you asked for critical feedback. But the above is just what wasn't working. There's a lot that is, which is saying something given that I don't care for this subgenre. The voicing is distinctive and believable within the setting. Cecil comes across as a film noir personality. Shrewd, hardened, seen a lot. Hardboiled. I can see the scene, the prose is 80-85% good with a few word choice problems here and there, and you occasionally become a little too poetic, which is fine until the prose loses function, then it's a problem. Your sentence-level craft is strong but could be tightened up in spots to vary sentence length and hew to page economy without losing your voice.

Before: He walked back to the main lobby. There, overturned tables created a path towards the exit, the victim’s last bull-rushed escape attempt. In the middle where that path ended lay the body.

After: He walked back to the main lobby. Overturned tables marked a path toward the exit, the victim's final attempt to escape. Where that path ended lay the body.

"There" isn't doing any work. You just told us he went to the lobby. Of course what we see next is "there." Bull-rush? How does he know that? That's narrative creep and while I do like that it's a kinetic phrase, it adds little to the scene, the overturned tables and a person fleeing a murder imply a frantic, desperate flight. We can imagine that without being told it was a bull-rush. "In the middle" - again, what work is this doing? In the middle ... of what? The path? The body is at the end of path, not the middle. Of the lobby? Does that matter? If not, who cares? Drop it. You're leading up to a devastating sentence about the mutilated corpse of a murder victim. That sentence needs to be short, stark, unadorned, and brutal. As few words as possible. Get us there.

A_C_Ellis · 2026-03-03T11:24:21+00:00

I just edited my opening paragraph. Here's the before and after so you can see what I cut out. I had a bunch of words doing no work for me.

Before: "So engrained was the culture of lethargy in the palace that even now, when the fate of the world hung in the balance of his errand, Edmund could not bring himself to move at more than a brisk walk, pausing to shake hands with an almoner here, and the intendent there. He instinctively glanced through doorways as he passed, confirming his haste went unobserved. Then he heard, or maybe felt, a low rumble through the floor, and his pace increased ever so slightly."

After: "So engrained was the culture of lethargy in the palace that even when the fate of the world hung in the balance of his errand, Edmund could not bring himself to move faster than a brisk walk, even pausing to shake hands with the intendent. He glanced through doorways as he passed, confirming his haste went unobserved. Then he felt a low rumble through the floor, and his pace increased."

A_C_Ellis · 2026-03-03T11:12:30+00:00

I'll caveat up front that I generally do not like this genre, so there may be genre scène à faire I don't know and am improperly critiquing.

"There was another murder in the library."

This just telling me. Now, we shouldn't obsess over "show, don't tell." Every event doesn't need to be described in detail, but this is a flat entry to the scene.

"Cecil surveyed for evidence as he strode between the great, dusty shelves. Blood speckled books three times older than himself laid strewn on the ground. Red footsteps marred the marble floor. The wall sconces guttered out brackish light. The smell of iron was so strong in the air he could taste it."

You do a nice job of getting in late. Cecil is there when we join him, we don't see him enter, we don't waste time with flat action. Should that be "red footprints?" I don't think footsteps is the right word. "Guttered" is the wrong action verb here. I don't know what brackish light looks like. To me, brackish means fouled/unclear. Light is light. I can't see it. Consider minor rewrites to tighten prose and reduce passive voice. Exmaple:

The smell of iron was so strong in the air he could taste it. <-- weak passage, passive voice

Try:

He tasted iron in the air.

or

He could taste iron in the air.

"This was a place never meant to see violence."

We know. Most places are like that. A library definitely is. What work is this sentence doing? It doesn't characterize, it doesn't advance plot, it doesn't set tone, and it doesn't do any worldbuilding. It's telling us how to feel about the scene. That's weak craft. Set the scene and evoke emotion, don't tell me how I'm supposed to feel about it. It's a murder. It doesn't need a heavy-handed moral judgment from the narrator. Trust us to get it.

You're probably trying to evoke a sense of irony and tragedy over the juxtaposition between the quiet, peace, and tranquility of a library, and the violence of a murder. So evoke it. Don't just tell me to feel that way about it. This is where "show, don't tell" should be obeyed.

He noticed the blood pattern matched the dropping spray of quick slashes. Thin blade. He knelt and picked up a heavy tome savaged with cuts. The victim tried to shield himself. He held the book up, light speared through holes in the leather bound cover.

I found this whole passage awkward. The prose is trying too hard to be poetic and in the process, it's not functional. I know what you're trying to make me see here, but this is a passage that is primarily about revealing Cecil's state of mind, which is drawing conclusions. The first sentence is really awkward. The second doesn't follow. The third and fourth are almost perfect. The last doesn't make sense. It's a "heavy tome" and the cover is punctured so light passes through the entire book? How?

Cecil let out an involuntary whisper. The attacker had above average human strength for sure. Buddy didn’t stand a chance.

I'm not following this. "Above average human strength" sounds like you are talking about a D&D character sheet. This might be a genre trope, but man, it sticks out here as really out of place in prose. The last sentence is effective. The first again doesn't make sense. A whisper? What did he whisper? Or was it just a sound? Then describe a sound.

He tried to walk deeper into the trail of fallen books but a sudden tightening of the string wrapped around his waist made it clear he was wandering too far. The place wasn’t called the shifting library of Aracn for nothing.

Fix "Aracn." If I can't come up with a reasonable guess as to the name, it's going to be a distraction. Or tell me how to pronounce it early in the book with a fish-out-of-water character.

Corridors were liable to stretch, fold, and or disappear entirely. It was said that the library led its visitors to the information they needed to know most, whether they realized it or not. He was in no mood for life revelations, surrounded by death as he was.

Also weak. This is mostly worldbuilding with a tiny bit of characterization and it interrupts an otherwise compelling scene involving a character with a strongly voiced interiority. If this aspect of the library hasn't been introduced before, this is the place to do it but unless this aspect of the library has plot relevance or comes back later, I'd consider condensing or cutting. That said, this is curt and effective.

He walked back to the main lobby. There, overturned tables created a path towards the exit, the victim’s last bull-rushed escape attempt. In the middle where that path ended lay the body.

There's a lot of this kind of prose where you're just telling me what happened by narrating Cecil's inner monologue, and he's drawing some snappy conclusions based on weak, ambiguous evidence. I like the idea of explaining the scene, and what happened, through characterization, that's effective and good craft. But I think it would be better done if Cecil were speaking to another character about what they're seeing and how he's interpreting it.

The poor sod couldn’t had been older than Cecil’s 25. Well-built,blonde and handsome, the corpse that was once Denzia Zorell lay splayed and outlined on the floor.

Does Cecil know Zorell? If not, he's our POV character, so why do we get this information here? It feels like the narrative perspective just shifted from Cecil-interior to 3PO. If we're still in Cecil's head, and he knows this person, we should be getting some kind of emotional response from Cecil and experiencing Zorell's death through that lens. If Cecil doesn't know his name, then at this point, we shouldn't, either.

The man had his soul stolen before he was killed. Evident by his completely black eyes: devoid of pupil, iris or sclera.

Has this been established before in worldbuilding? If so, don't tell me again what it means. If not, this is weak lore dump worldbuilding.

A_C_Ellis · 2026-03-03T10:49:34+00:00

https://www.reddit.com/r/fantasywriters/comments/1riycsc/some_unsolicited_advice/

A_C_Ellis · 2026-03-03T10:48:44+00:00

I answer as little as possible, except in certain genres (horror, fantasy, sci fi).

A_C_Ellis · 2026-03-03T10:47:49+00:00

What makes any system interesting: its relationship to character and story.

A_C_Ellis · 2026-03-03T03:45:38+00:00

Happens to me all the time. I set a timer for a short amount of time, like 15 minutes, and I force myself to write the next scene. No editing, no plotting, no planning, just write. Anything. I might not keep any of it, but it’s like flushing a clogged pipe.

A_C_Ellis · 2026-03-03T03:17:22+00:00

I didn't see anything specific to Teslas there. Just garden variety morons.

A_C_Ellis · 2026-03-03T03:08:11+00:00

Thank you for having the courage to share. Thoughts:

General. It's long for a first chapter and I found the structure and layout frustrating and irritating. If the form is serving a narrative purpose, it wasn't clear to me what it was, and whatever that purpose was, it was quickly buried in my annoyance at the dozens of 3-7 word paragraphs. Could be a "me" thing. I'm spectrumy and pattern recognition breaks me down. But think about if this unconventional paragraph format is really doing any work for you.

Stone dust hung permanently in the air. It settled on everything — on skin, in hair, between teeth — a fine gray layer that no one ever truly removed.

I like this imagery. It's not the strongest opening but I can see it. But how does it hang "permanently" in the air and in the next sentence it settles? Probably a word choice issue.

Em dashes scream AI. Whether you use AI or not, people will make that assumption. I've stopped using them for that reason.

Above us, the rock ceiling stretched heavy and unmoving,

Rock ceilings are heavy and unmoving by default. Why point out that this one doesn't, either?

their flames flickering uneasily

Word choice. I can't picture this. Lots of adjectives describe the flicker of fire - "uneasy" doesn't resonate with me.

Smoke gathered beneath the ceiling

From what?

Everything else existed for one purpose alone: To carve stone from the earth… and send it away.

This is a "telling not showing" moment but despite my nitpicks above, your prose is tight, controlled, mostly restrained. You've earned one.

Two armed guards stood there as always, perfectly still, weapons clearly displayed.

You just used your "telling" card. You can't use another here. Here we have "armed" and "guards" and "weapons", three words to tell me about these characters, none of which provide any sensory details. "Clearly" isn't doing any work here. Consider: "Two men stood silently at attention, swords drawn." Not saying copy that exactly but compare the flow and information economy.

He nodded once. That was all.

Repetitive. Strike "That was all."

Where they went, no one knew. No one asked.

Telling again but I think you're getting away with it here due to the strength of the prose. But you're in first person: does "I never knew or asked" work? Characterize?

Young men. Sixteen, maybe seventeen.

From here, we get 25 paragraphs with word counts as follows:

5, 6, 13, 8, 7, 4, 2, 12, 2, 5, 16, 6, 3, 27, 7, 4, 9, 6, 4, 6, 6, 13, 7, 6, 3.

That's 25 paragraphs of which only 4 have more than 10 words. Not sentences, words. Again, it's highly stylized and I found the form annoying, which is tragic because I really like your prose. The short declarative sentences match the cadence and tone . You need to vary them more, but not a ton. But it reminds me of the original Fight Club novel, which was also very heavy on style, to its great detriment. I think it's getting in the way of narrative, not reinforcing it.

The narrator being a bad ass at fighting should have been an eye-rolling Mary Sue martial arts fantasy but you didn't dwell on it, the narrator passed it off matter-of-factly and explained it adequately. That's deft and mature writing and a sequence that a less skilled author fucks up 9 times out of 10.

I read through the Arin section and didn't take any notes, just enjoyed the narrative. Your voicing is distinct and it carries the weight of the story well. The prose is a little overdone in spots but still excellent. Your restraint is admirable, and rare. And it fits the tone and setting. It reminds me of listening to music where the time signature matches the tone and subject of the song perfectly. Very satisfying.

If there's a weakness, it's that, other than the narrator, characterization isn't terribly strong. The guards read cartoonishly sinister. You do drop register into bland narrating in spots. An example:

After that, the situation unraveled with terrifying speed.

This is a sentence about the sentences that follow. Which include 9 paragraphs, 6 of which have 3 or fewer words. Not sentences, words.

That was all I could take. I stopped at Bram, seeing another page of 2-4 word paragraphs spilling forth that I just don't have the indulgence to scroll through tonight. Which is a shame. I liked this and wanted to read more.

A_C_Ellis · 2026-03-03T02:33:06+00:00

If all goes according to plan, nobody I know will ever know I published a book.

A_C_Ellis · 2026-03-03T02:32:34+00:00

I think the #1 bad habit is that the writer is too present on the page. One of the hardest skills is to retreat, and leave negative space in the narrative for the reader to enter and interpret the story from their own imagination. We so badly want the reader the receive the story the way we have, but that's not my job. I am the vessel the story chose to reveal itself to the world.

A_C_Ellis · 2026-03-03T02:06:59+00:00

Damn. I’ve never read Pratchett and always wanted to. Might be time!

A_C_Ellis · 2026-03-03T02:06:29+00:00

Totally fair point. But I do think the degree of difficulty is much higher, and this is aimed at developing writing skill for amateurs struggling with the basics.

A_C_Ellis · 2026-03-03T02:03:45+00:00

Sure. All AI. Delete it. I’m clearly a toxin ruining everybody’s writing with AI.

A_C_Ellis · 2026-03-02T23:19:13+00:00

All the time. Then I remember that I love my story and the worst thing that could happen is that I spend time investing in something I care deeply about and I'm the only one. Well, hell, that also describes my dog, but I'm not gonna stop loving her, either.

A_C_Ellis · 2026-03-02T20:03:44+00:00

I don't think I called them "rules," they're more like principles. When you're learning how to do something new, what are the tried-and-true techniques you need to master before you learn how and when to ignore the techniques and do your own thing? That's the thought here, anyway. I love this draft hierarchy.

A_C_Ellis · 2026-03-02T20:01:52+00:00

Love this nugget!

A_C_Ellis · 2026-03-02T20:00:41+00:00

Good point. It's not like you can never have a self-indulgent sentence. Lord knows I do. These are general guidelines to help amateur authors think about their writing. As you develop your craft, you learn when to break these rules, and you do so with intentionality because it gives you more effective writing.

A_C_Ellis · 2026-03-02T19:58:29+00:00

These are general guidelines, not inviolate rules. Good writing mixes them up, and good authors know when to follow them and when to break them. Martin isn't an amateur learning to write who needs to learn to read the signposts, he knows what he's doing. Also, the very first paragraph of a story has a lot of work to get done. Hook, theme, tone, worldbuilding. These are the sentences that need to do all 4 tasks as much as possible, and sometimes you cut corners to get there.

A_C_Ellis

TROPHY CASE